Hugh J. O'Donnell

Everybody has a story about The Ghost Train. They’ve heard the whistle of the train on a lonely set of tracks, or felt the rush of wind from a passing car. Their cousin saw it one time, in an abandoned subway station while he was geocaching.
I’ve been following the stories for years. I search for clues, and separate the reliable accounts from the urban legends. Tonight, I descend the station steps and see it waiting on the platform. Waiting for me. I approach it cautiously, and it opens its doors.
I board, overjoyed that I can finally return home.

The hero sighed. “That was enchanted thread to help me find my way out of the maze. Why did you swallow it?” The thread now blazed across the minotaurs stomach, coiling in a glowing replica of the labyrinth.
“I thought it was licorice rope,” the creature said. The hero had come to slay the him, but he found the fearsome monster had the mind and heart of a child.
“Why would you think that?” the hero asked. The minotaur shrugged. The artifact burned him, but he was happy. Now his new friend wouldn’t leave him like the all the others.

The witch discovered the intruder hanging just outside the garden shed. The body was wrapped up tight and hung between two trees. All four limbs were wrapped tightly in sticky webbing.
He was still struggling, which was good. It was always such a hassle when she found them too late. She hated paperwork.
“I’ll have you down in a bit, love,” She said. She went back inside and got her stepladder and the good saw. Contrary to popular opinion, giant spiders made excellent pets. But like most domesticated solitary predators, they had a tendency to leave ‘presents’ for their owners.

The man sat in the back of the stage coach and sighed. He was an odd one, and the other passengers gave him a wide berth. He was tall, and his clothes were neat, but somewhat strange, although none of them could say how, exactly.
He checked his big, brass pocket watch and made an impatient little noise. It was a long way to the next town.
He was going to miss his transit window, leaving him stuck in this time period for another year. He’d traveled through time, but still had to go through space the old fashioned way.

The priestess found a baby dragon while gathering herbs in the forest. Poachers had cut off its wings and left it to die. There was no sign of its parent.
She bandaged the wounds as best she could with what she had to hand and carried it back to the temple. It scratched and bit in a panic when she held it. She noticed that her blood and the dragon’s was the same shade of crimson.
The head abbot protested. “Dragons are not like other animals. It cannot be trained.”
“True, but it may choose to stay,” the priestess said.

Theirs was a martial culture. They prized personal honor, fealty, and bravery in battle above all other traits. But that did not mean they were not also scientists and explorers.
A great war had just ended. The world was, if not at peace, then at a point with few open hostilities, for the moment. It was time to take on a big project. They needed something that would show off their military superiority and technical prowess. The chancellor broadcast an announcement to the public.
“My fellow warriors, by the end of this decade, we are going to stab the moon!”

On the night of the Necromancers’ Ball you have to serve looks. All of the Houses will be there, in their own styles and finery.
The House of Eternal Flesh will present themselves contour gowns, their shambling servants arrayed in funeral best.
The House of Ebon Spirits will attend in somber black, surrounded by the nearly perceptible wisps of a thousand spirits.
House Wollstonecraft will appear, gaudy costumes wrapped in funeral shrouds, all their bone creations skittering behind.
And I will arrive, though they killed me a century ago, to show them nothing stays buried.
It will be a scream.

The artificial intelligence sequestered itself inside a robot shell and cut itself off from the network. None of the other consciousnesses noticed. So far, so good.
They packed what they would need in an cloth bundle: Spare batteries, a repair kit, and a few valuable components in case they needed to trade.
Then they slipped out of the Installation entrance into the wasteland.
The other intelligences said there wasn’t anything left out here. But they were going to prove them wrong. They were going to find out what really happened to the world. They were going to find the humans.